SBI Associate Bank PO - Exam Syllabus & Pattern

Dear reader here we are presenting syllabus of SBI Associate Banks PO Exam 2014.
This can be helpful to know the pattern and level of the questions asked in this exam.

STATE BANK OF INDIA ASSOCIATE BANKS PROBATIONARY OFFICER (PO)

2014 SYLLABUS is a very important thing that every candidate has to look into and it
is also advisable to the candidates that they must continuously refer to the syllabus at
the starting of the preparation and also while the preparation is going on.
SBI Associates Banks
1. SBBJ State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur
2. SBH - State Bank of Hyderabad
3. SBM - State Bank of Mysore
4. SBP - State Bank of Patiala
5. SBT - State Bank of Travancore

Name of the Vacancies

Bank
SC ST
OH
SBBJ
45 71
SBH
112 157
SBM
70 69
SBP
07 56
SBT
181 180
Total
415 533

OBC
81
253
126
13
270
743

General

153
378
235
24
505
1295

350
900
500
100
1136
2986

Total
15
38
14
14
15
96

VH
08
18
16
02
15
59

SBI Associate Banks Probationary officer (PO) exam consists of 2 sections

namely:
1. Objective type paper-I - 200 Marks
2. Descriptive type Paper-II - 50 marks
Syllabus includes of the following section:
1. Reasoning (HIGH LEVEL)
2. Data Interpretation
3. English Language (Grammer, Vocabulary, Comprehension etc)
4. General Awareness + Computer + Marketing Awareness
The above mentioned sections are from the Objective paper of the Exam whereas; the
Descriptive paper also includes the English Language.
Below mentioned is the detailed syllabus of SBI PO Associate Banks 2014
syllabus:

Objective type paper-I 200 Marks

A). ENGLISH LANGUAGE SYLLABUS OF SBI ASSOCIATE BANKS PO 2014:
According to the analysis of previous year question paper there were two
Reading Comprehensions.
AREA
NUMBER OF QUESTION DIFFICULTY LEVEL
Reading Comprehension
10+10
Moderate to Difficult
Faulty Construction
15
Easy to Moderate
Jumbled Sentences
5
Easy to Moderate
Close Passages
10
Moderate
B). REASONING SYLLABUS OF SBI ASSOCIATE BANKS PO 2014:
NAME
NUMBER OF QUESTION
Input - output
5
Sentence coding
5
Logical Reasoning
15
Syllogism
5
Puzzle
/
Seating 10
Arrangement
Data Sufficiency
5
Direction &other problem
5

DIFFICULTY LEVEL
Difficult
Easy
Easy to Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
Moderate
Easy to Moderate

C) GENERAL AWARENESS SYLLABUS OF SBI ASSOCIATE BANKS PO 2014

Area
NUMBER OF QUESTION DIFFICULTY LEVEL
Banking Awareness
14
Moderate to Difficult
Current Affairs
16
Easy to Moderate
Computer Awareness
10
Easy to Moderate
Marketing
10
Moderate

D) DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION SYLLABUS OF SBI ASSOCIATE BANKS

PO 2013
AREA
Probability
Line Graph
Pie Charts
Bar Charts
Tables

NUMBER OF QUESTION
5
5
10
15
15

DIFFICULTY LEVEL
Easy to Moderate
Moderate
Moderate to Difficult
Easy
Moderate to Difficult

DESCRIPTIVE SECTION SYLLABUS OF SBI ASSOCIATE BANKS PO 50 Marks

1. Letter Writing
2. Paragraph Writing
3. Essay Writing
4. Precise Writing
5. Reading Comprehension
AREA
Letter Writing

NUMBER OF QUESTION
10

Paragraph Writing

Essay Writing

12

Precise Writing
Reading Comprehension

10
10

TOPICS
To a branch to close the
saving account, To friend to
attend a seminar on net
banking, To a bank for
higher education loan
If I were an author, Rural
Banking,
Impact
of
autonomy provided to bank
Right to education act,
Financial Inclusion, How
Technology
can
help
banking sector
Chief Vigilance Officer
ATM and its uses

Exam Duration and Sections

The total exam duration is of 3 hours, with Objective test (online) being given 2 hours and
Descriptive test (offline) for 1 hour.
Objective Test is of 200 marks while Descriptive Test is of 50 marks. Candidate needs to clear
both the test to be eligible for the process ahead.
Score High in Objective Test
Objective Test has 4 sections:
Reasoning

Data Interpretation

English Language

General Awareness + Computer + Marketing

Each section within Objective Test has 50 questions (making total of 200 questions) carrying 1
mark each.
If we see above, we have 120 minutes for 200 questions Hence time management is the key to
score high in SBI Associate PO. As per our analysis and discussions with people who have
cracked similar exams in past- following is the one of thebest possible division of time that you
should go for. However, if you have some other time distribution that works best for you, you
may continue with it otherwise go for the below one.
Reasoning 35 minutes
Data Interpretation 40 minutes
English Language 30 minutes

General Awareness + Marketing + Computer 15 minutes

Remember that one needs to be very quick with the questions and there is no need at all to spend
more than 1 minute in any of the questions, no matter how much you get emotionally inclined to
solve it at any cost.
You may try different time distributions on available SBI Associate PO past papers and mocks.

Key to crack Reasoning Section

Key to crack this section is to be mentally alert while reading the question, map the situation in
your mind while reading the question itself, think logically on the facts mentioned and arrive at
the answer. Best way to practice is from past SBI Associate PO papers.
Topics majorly covered in this section are Syllogism, Data Sufficiency, Decision Making,
Seating Arrangement, Puzzle Test, Input-Output and Logical Reasoning. We suggest to keep
Data Sufficiency to be solved at last as they are relatively more time consuming than other
topics.
Seating Arrangement, Puzzle Test and Logical Reasoning forms the majority of questions (on
average 25 questions in this section followed by Syllogism, Data Sufficiency, Decision Making
and Input-Output based questions (on an average 5 each).
Key to crack Data Interpretation Section
Having a good command over Percentage, Ratios and Average helps to score high in this section.
These help you in quick calculations in almost every question of this section.
Data in the questions is mostly represented in the form of pie chart, bar graph, tables and line
graph. You should practice from old SBI Associate PO papers to decipher this pictorial
representation of data in quick time.
Do not make silly calculation mistakes in this section it is a high scoring section but time
consuming at the same time give the maximum time to this section and do not miss out at
marks in haste that you can get in this section. There would be some questions which will
involve long calculations, you may leave such questions for the last and solve the ones which
need less calculation earlier.
Key to crack English Language Section
As compared to other Banking exams, focus on grammar, verbs, adjectives, noun and pronoun is
more in SBI Associate PO examination. Having a good command on vocabulary helps further to
score high in this section.
Major topics covered in the section are Fill in the blanks, Cloze Test, Common Error in
Sentence, Parajumbles and Reading Comprehension.
Questions in Reading Comprehension are pretty straightforward and a quick reading of the
passage should help to crack them easily. Hence, it is important to have a good reading speed
you should get into the habit of online reading to get a command on this. If nothing else, try to
read english newspapers online would help a lot.
Grammar based questions should not consume more than 30 seconds per question and a good
hold on grammar (practice from Wren and Martin and old SBI papers) will help in quickly
accumulating good marks in the section.
Key to crack General Awareness + Marketing + Computer
Questions from Marketing generally revolve around 7 P and 5 S of Marketing, Life cycle of
Banking Products, Segmentation Targeting and Positioning, Banking Policy and How to develop
an organization. These are very basic concepts and any marketing book can be referred to
understand them.

Computer based questions revolve around Microsoft Excel, Word, Power point etc. One who
knows to work on these shall find the questions very easy.
For general awareness, it is important to read news and be aware of the happenings around. If
you havent done much on this respect yet, get hold of any year book and get to know what all
has happened in last one year. Seeing the timing of the season, you may also expect some
questions on election and new government formation.

Score High in Descriptive Test

The paper is offline and majorly contains Letter Writing, Precise Writing and Questions based on
passages.
Do not worry if you do not have a very strong command in english writing just try to formulate
your thoughts in logical sequence and express yourself without making grammar mistakes. No
need to use very complex vocabulary while writing letter or precise, normal english without
grammar mistakes should help you score high.
Keep reading english newspapers would help you in improving your writing as well.
Last but not the least, do not forget to solve past SBI PO papers and analyze them properly after
solving. This will help you in improving the weak areas and further strengthening your strong
areas.
SBI Associate PO Cut off Marks (2013)
Minimum Qualifying Marks
S. No Name of the Section

SC / ST / OBC / XS

General

General Awareness

12

General English

13

Quantitative Aptitude

12

16

Reasoning Ability

11

Marketing Aptitude / Computer Knowledge

12

Interview

12

14

SBI Associate PO Overall Cut off Marks (2013)

Category Wise Cutoff Marks

Category Written Test Cutoff Marks (Out Marks of Lowest Rank Selected
of 200)
Candidate
SC

123

158

ST

108

145

OBC

140

173

General

140

181

XS

110

143

Wish everyone good luck for SBI Associate PO 2014 exam.